{"id":73900,"date":"2025-07-18T23:27:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T23:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73900\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T23:27:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T23:27:15","slug":"obama-admin-assessed-russia-played-no-role-in-2016-election-result-declassified-documents-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73900\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama admin assessed Russia played no role in 2016 election result, declassified documents show"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 The Obama administration knew before and after the 2016 election that Russia\u00a0did not affect\u00a0the vote\u2019s\u00a0outcome through cyberattacks<\/a>, according to a bombshell document released by the Trump administration Friday.<\/p>\n

Director of National Intelligence\u00a0(DNI)\u00a0Tulsi Gabbard\u00a0made public\u00a0more than 100 pages of emails, memos and other records cataloguing what she called Obama officials\u2019 \u201cconspiracy to subvert President Trump\u2019s 2016 victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both before and after Democrat Hillary Clinton\u2019s loss, the US Intelligence Community assessed that Russia played no significant role influencing the election.<\/p>\n

DNI Tulsi Gabbard said the documents were part of an effort to subvert Trump\u2019s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Among the documents was a Sept. 12, 2016, Intelligence Community Assessment that determined \u201cforeign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks\u201d on election infrastructure.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 7, 2016, then-DNI James Clapper\u2019s office also concluded: \u201cForeign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome\u201d and \u201cWe have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other findings, prepared the following day for Obama\u2019s Presidential Daily Brief, only pointed to the \u201clikely\u201d hacking of an Illinois voter registration database that did not affect the electoral count and was \u201cunsuccessfully attempted\u201d in other states.<\/p>\n

\u201cCriminal activity also failed to reach the scale and sophistication necessary to change election outcomes,\u201d the draft of the brief stated.<\/p>\n

But those findings were suppressed after the FBI \u2014 led by Director\u00a0James Comey \u2014 said it was going to \u201cdissent\u201d from the draft\u2019s conclusions \u201cbased on some new guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clapper then spearheaded an alternative intelligence report claiming the Kremlin orchestrated hackings of Democratic National Committee emails, thousands of which were later posted online by Wikileaks, and intervened in the presidential contest in favor of Trump.<\/p>\n

Findings were suppressed after the FBI \u2014 led by Director\u00a0James Comey \u2014 said it was going to \u201cdissent\u201d from the draft\u2019s conclusions \u201cbased on some new guidance.\u201d REUTERS<\/p>\n

Several officials\u00a0\u2014 including CIA Director John Brennan, Secretary of State John Kerry, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe \u2014 met at the White House on Dec. 9, 2016, where Obama began \u201ctasking\u201d each to look into \u201cRussia Election Meddling.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House chief of staff Denis McDonogh, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson also attended that meeting.<\/p>\n

The 44th president ordered a new intelligence assessment from the CIA, FBI, NSA and DHS, with comprehensive information about Russia\u2019s activities related to the US presidential race by early January \u2014\u00a0an assessment\u00a0which ended up including the since-debunked dossier produced by\u00a0former\u00a0MI6 spy Christopher Steele.<\/p>\n

Clapper spearheaded an alternative intelligence report claiming the Kremlin orchestrated hackings of Democratic National Committee emails Getty Images<\/p>\n

An executive assistant for Clapper wrote in an email later the same day that the new intel assessment must describe the\u00a0\u201ctools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the intelligence community later began to leak to the media that officials had \u201ca high level of confidence\u201d that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the \u201cU.S. Election Hack\u201d and Obama expressed public concerns about hacks affecting the vote counting process.<\/p>\n

The White House meeting attendees also \u201cagreed to recommend sanctioning of certain members of the Russian military intelligence and foreign intelligence chains of command responsible for cyber operations as a response to cyber activity that attempted to influence or interfere with U.S. elections, if such activity meets the requirements,\u201d a National Security Council document showed.<\/p>\n

The final product was a Jan. 7, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment that\u00a0\u201cdirectly contradicted the IC assessments that were made throughout the previous six months,\u201d according to Gabbard.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe\u00a0released a bombshell review<\/a>\u00a0of the 2016 assessment that concluded Clapper, Brennan and Comey deliberately corrupted it for \u201cpotential political motive[s].\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump Justice Department later launched an investigation into Brennan and Comey for potential criminal violations related to the crafting of that assessment more than eight years ago.<\/p>\n

Gabbard said in a statement that she was forwarding the records to the Department of Justice \u201cto deliver the accountability that President Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue I am raising is not a partisan issue. It is one that concerns every American. The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A month after the election, DNI James Clapper concluded no foreign nations altered election results. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DNI chief added: \u201cNo matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabbard\u2019s expos\u00e9 draws heavily on astounding new details dredged up by a whistleblower from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who informed\u00a0Clapper there was \u201cno indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.\u201d<\/p>\n

That whistleblower was pressured by the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber to accept the later Obama intelligence assessment\u2019s findings, which included that Moscow had a preference for Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to trust me on this,\u201d the whistleblower\u2019s superior told him, referencing reporting that the informant was \u201cnot allowed to see,\u201d which presumably included the Steele dossier.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for the 2017 ICA\u2019s judgement of a decisive Russian preference for then-candidate Donald Trump,\u201d the whistleblower stated in one of their emails. \u201cI could not concur in good conscience based on information available, and my professional analytic judgement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by Kendall White<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The Obama administration knew before and after the 2016 election that Russia\u00a0did not affect\u00a0the vote\u2019s\u00a0outcome through…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":73901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11744,69,51586,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,257,51587,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-73900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-james-clapper","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-tulsi-gabbard","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114876831859277134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}